


As a Thread of Scarlet

by matan4il



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Loss of Virginity, M/M, Scarlet Red as a motif, Unicorns, Virginity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-12
Updated: 2008-12-12
Packaged: 2018-05-07 08:47:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5450579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matan4il/pseuds/matan4il
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because the awesome Aleathiel wanted to know how a red shirt, which was definitely not Merlin's, can be seen lying about in Merlin's bedroom during episode 112. This might get a sequel after episode 113 is aired, who knows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As a Thread of Scarlet

**Author's Note:**

> The story is told by one person, but from two temporally separated points of view. The first is italicized, is set further into the future (presumably after episode 113) and refers to the point in time that the second recounts as present. 
> 
> **Rating:** Gaius wouldn't approve of Merlin reading this, so NC-17.
> 
>  **Spoilers:** Up to episode 112, including.
> 
>  **Archive:** Gladly, but do ask. Thank you!
> 
>  **Disclaimer:** Never was. But if there would have been, the BBC would make all the money off of it, not I.
> 
>  **Banner:** I'd like to thank the talented Milkybar08 for this gorgeous little thing!
> 
>  **Benevolent beta:** This fic can be proclaimed readable thanks to the efforts and support of the wonderful Pabzi. Thank you, hon!
> 
>  **Additional, updated note:** This fic was originally written in 2008, after episode 12 of the first season had aired and before episode 13 was. It was originally posted on my personal LiverJournal and now it's being uploaded here as well. Funnily enough, around the original date of publication. I have no idea whether it stands the test of time, but here it is anyway. Enjoy!

**Part I: Becoming**  
  
_We already had less time than we thought we did. Had we known, what would we have done differently? And would it have afforded us more time, together?_

///

  
I look over at you as you sleep. Your clothes are scattered around the room. You'll pick them up when you'll go, but before that, you'll make sure to leave one article of clothing behind. Just one; perhaps the red shirt. You always did think that you looked particularly fetching in it. That's why you'll want me to think of you wearing it as your fingers will brush against it, before they'll withdraw, empty.  
  
Maybe you won't lift your head right away. You'll maintain that posture for one second too long, just enough to awaken in me the memory of seeing you truly sorry for the very first time.

///

  
We stood at the top of a tower, one of the many in your father's castle, looking down on the people gathered in the square below us. It's a thing with you, overseeing other people like this. At first I took it to be one more sign of your arrogant attitude towards your father's minions, who will one day be yours. But as I came to understand, it isn't, is it? You look at them in much the same way as you would stay awake a while longer at night, listening to a younger sibling breathing after having recovered from a cold, just to make sure everything's alright before turning in to sleep yourself. Not because it was your duty, but because you genuinely cared.  
  
"I have failed them," you uttered and I heard my own predictions regarding how harsh you'd be on yourself echoed in your words. I tried to comfort you, but even as I spoke, I knew it was to no avail. 'You are so damn stubborn, Arthur,' I thought to myself, 'to not ever listen to me, even when it could offer you solace. You are too damn stubborn. That must be why I love you'.  
  
I never thought I did before that moment, because despite everything we've gone through, I've never felt I plainly knew you, saw your heart and treasured everything I found in you, good and bad alike, quite as much as I did then.

///

  
Riding after you to the labyrinth was not only the obvious thing to do, it was also as natural as breathing or as riding into the forest to meet a formidable force and letting that stranger know how strongly I felt about you.  
  
What wasn't quite so natural was finding myself being used as part of the trap laid to capture you. Feeling like I was failing you stung almost palpably. I heard your words of parting and acceptance of the inevitable, and I replied in the only way I could. I concentrated even harder on the goblets. You had to live. There was no choice anyone could have about it.  
  
Or so I thought until I watched you fall, the last drops of the poisoned liquid spilling over from your goblet. I rushed over to your body, to check if it was as breathless as I was. How could this have been your test when it felt so much like it was mine? What was I to do but beg? I did. I would have done worse, had it been any good.

///

  
A stranger never knows how he might upset your world. Or maybe he does, but being the stranger that he is, he doesn't truly mind. The Keeper of the Unicorns was gone, his announcement of the curse's end still scorching the air. You were asleep, I was silent and even so, we already were stripped of who we had been before.  
  
As confused as I was, I did think to drag you away from the sun to a shelter in the form of a near cave. I didn't know how long I would have to wait for you to awaken. I didn't know how to wait for it. Was it relief I was feeling; was it dread? I sat at the cave's opening and looked at the waves.  
  
When I noticed your footsteps behind me, I waited to hear what you'd say. You stopped behind me and said nothing. I looked down at my shoes on the sand, thought of the mark they'd leave there, and stood up.  
  
I turned around to face, I wasn't even sure what, but certainly not your paleness. It took me by surprise and I wanted to check if you were alright. My hand sprang forward as if of its own accord and you clutched it. What a strange vision our awkwardly clasped hands made. What a strange and perfect vision. I looked back up from them to you in time to see you lifting your eyes from the sight as well. Gazing straight at you, perhaps for the first time since we had met, I couldn't begin to comprehend which one of us drew in the other one, but there we were, kissing.  
  
Lips touching lips, then a tongue licking them shamelessly, I needed to feel the pulse in your veins there. I could feel the breath you were holding as I did, could feel you release it when I withdrew. With mouth still open, I felt like I was lapping up the warmth of your exhaled air.  
  
I stood there, eyes closed, focused on feeling the heat of your body across the tiny gap still left between us. Then that distance was gone as well and we were flushed together, kissing fully, mouths open and tongues madly darting out, my erection painfully obvious against yours. You groaned in pleasure through the kiss and in one swift movement you pinned me up against the wall. You tried to do away with my trousers, but you still had your gloves on, rendering you less efficient than you would usually be. My hands were pulling at your shirt and at your hair, then at your shirt again. Wherever we were headed, I wanted us to be there already and I couldn't get enough of the journey either.  
  
Held up by you, my trousers were around my ankles, barely holding on, when you freed yourself as well and muttering a low "sorry", barely audible, you entered me. It wasn't a deep penetration, but it hurt badly enough. With a small yelp, my head fell back and got knocked a little by the cave's wall. You stopped in your tracks and studied me. I held your gaze to let you know I wasn't wounded. You reached out for my red neckerchief. Still holding me up against the wall with your one hand and your weight leaning against me, you pulled it away from my neck and gently tucked it in my mouth. For a brief moment, I could taste your leather glove. You used your freed hand to better hold my torso up, thumb rubbing against nipple through the cloth of my shirt. I would have moaned, perhaps for a split second I did, but you took me aback by leaning down ever so quickly and pressing your lips to the patch of skin you've exposed. Your mouth sucked and left searing marks on and then between my collarbones. I leaned against the wall and heard myself, muffled and moaning as you resumed your motions, taking me inch by inch, faster and faster.  


///

  
We passed from shadow to sunlight as we stepped outside.  
  
"My father will be missing us," you said. "We should hurry or he will think my dim witted manservant got me into trouble again". There was a small, practically hidden glimmer in your eye. "And that isn't too far from the truth, is it, Merlin?"  
  
It was good, hearing your voice again, and I smiled.  


///

  
"There's something we must do first," you sound determined and I follow you to the killing site of the unicorn. We didn't expect to see him there, alive and well, but then again, there were many things we marveled at that day.  
  
He would not come near me this time, but the pain of the realization was fleeting as we watched him with wonder, together.

  
**Part II: Being**

I heard it. It woke me from my sleep, hurting my ears with an almost squeal-like sound. It didn't mean I knew what it was, other than the vague feeling that it was some powerful, ominous magic at work. Later I would find out what it was and the name given to it, but when I woke up, all I felt was the dark tugging of an emotional whirlpool, made that much darker by the knowledge that none of those feelings were my own. None, yet I could sense their strong effect on mine.  
  
When I walked out of my bedroom and spoke to Gaius about it, he tried to comfort me. I was grateful to him, but knew that if you had let me stay in your chamber that night, comforting me wouldn't have been quite as difficult a task.  


///

  
We had been lying in your bed the previous night, giggling as I had tested your sensibilities to my touch, to my licking, to the exploration of ticklish spots.  
  
"Merlin!" you had cried out, by which you had meant, 'please do not stop'. I hadn't. I had been lazy in my touching and lazy in my love making, moving in you far less often than I licked the side of your neck or grazed a nipple with my teeth. I had been keeping your arms spread out at the side of your body, palms up and open. In the candlelight, the sight of you would have taken any mortal or immortal's soul away: golden hair covered in sweat, tousled upon the silky sheets, creamy skin splayed out above the covers, tensed body writhing with the smallest sensation enhanced by your covered eyes and the pleasure conveyed in your wide grin.  
  
God, your skin. I had inhaled the scent of it, of your perspiration and before I had known it, I had picked up the pace, scraping the skin of your stretched out wrists and thrusting deep. Everything about you is intoxicatingly maddening, Arthur, it still is and always will be. Who could keep a controlled rhythm for too long? Not I. My movements had become erratic, accompanied by licking and biting, arching into you and listening to the wanton sounds you had been making. Maybe those had been words of plea, there had been no way for me to know from those desperate noises, but I had changed my angle regardless, hitting the spot you had been aching at.  
  
You had screamed. Oh, the satisfaction I had taken in your scream. Twisting in my arms and thrashing about, your completion had arrived. With a movement or two and a strangled cry, I had spent myself in you, feeling you compliantly lifting your hips to meet my last motions of penetration even after you had been done.  
  
For a while we had rested, myself still inside you, before you had asked me not to come in late the following day. Stunned, I had gotten up and off the bed. Your chamber had seemed far bigger than upon my arrival earlier that evening. I had started collecting my belonging from the floor, hoping you'd stop me.  
  
You had not. In my confusion, I had turned to go when your voice had reached me. "Don't forget your garment, Merlin," and you had tossed at me the red piece of material you had been referring to.  
  
I had left your chamber and had walked back with it in my hand to the place where I still had room.  


///

  
Of course you were out there, commanding the guards on the very same night when the pull of magic had awoken me. And soon after that, you attacked me for speaking my mind. A vicious little attack whose every word you thoroughly meant. I could tell, so I didn't argue. When you sent me off to do whatever it was I was meant to be doing, I gladly walked away from you, walked as far as I could, until it hurt. It became clear to me how unbearable it suddenly was, being glad to walk away from you.  


///

  
I didn't expect you to come after me at all, so when you did, though you had taken your time, I was not prepared for it. I was least anticipating the sorrow in your eyes.  
  
"Merlin," you spoke and it was little more than a whisper, "you really shouldn't be so right sometimes."  
  
It wasn't quite an apology, but didn't I know you well enough by now? You told me all that needed to be said.  
  
"Sire," I replied quietly and slowly, "I know how loyal to your father you are. But do consider Gwen. Her loyalty doesn't fall shorter than yours."  
  
You stared ahead for a long moment, maybe at me. Then you came closer. You raised your hand to the side of my face and traced a contour with your finger. I returned my eyes to you in time to see you nod.  
  
"I'll see what I can do for her."  
  
You moved your finger to just beneath my lips and I parted them, taking you in, sucking on one finger after another as you offered me two, then three.  
  
We knew Gwen might be back any minute, since I had extended an open invitation to her should she feel the need for company. So when I let the last of your fingers slip from my mouth, savoring your taste, you had a go at it with all the ferociousness I always knew you were capable of. You crushed me up against the cupboard and insisted on tearing off my clothes, slapping my hand away when I tried to assist.  
  
"Please," I heard myself begging, though I didn't know precisely what for. You had already discarded your red shirt and undid your leather belt, so when you grabbed both of my wrists in your right hand and held them up above me, it was clear that this wouldn't take long. It didn't have to.  


///

  
And now we are laying here, the prince in his manservant's bed, and I look over at you as you sleep. The scene of your leaving to arrange anything you can for Gwen plays out in my mind. You'll leave something behind though I won't request it of you. It would be impossible, because I look at your chest rising and falling, hiding away the enormity of your heart, and I haven't the desire to ask a single thing from you. When you'll ready yourself to leave, I'll do nothing but follow your hands with my eyes as they move about in the room, until I'll notice your shirt.  
  
I'll leave it exactly as is and the next opportunity I'll have, I will let myself into your bed chamber and discard my garments around, leaving a piece of my clothing, perhaps the red neckerchief, on your floor, where it belongs, before climbing into your bed to await you.  


///

  
_But then came Nimueh and in her wake, the end, already nearer than we knew._

**Author's Note:**

>  **Last note:** In the Hebrew Bible, the scarlet color represents the sensuousness of sin and the scarlet thread is mentioned in the Song of Songs' erotic love poetry, as well as representing the bond that connects different parts of the same entity.


End file.
